Here are some highlights from the GRAMMATICAL ARGUMENT chapter:
Pro-
Comma advocates concede that the extant Greek manuscript evidence is overwhelmingly against their position.
[1]
Because the external evidence is so strong, they present alternative arguments to vindicate the
Comma. Several proposed lines of argument bear mention but will receive no attention in this thesis.
[2]
These include:
the “worn out manuscripts” hypothesis
[3]
the destruction of manuscripts in the Diocletian persecution
[4]
the charge of inconsistency against reasoned eclecticism
[5]
noting the minimal Greek evidence for 1 John
[6]
the theological argument
[7]
It is my personal observation that the preceding arguments reveal a flawed method: authenticity is assumed before analysis.
[8] Without first assuming the authenticity of the
Comma, most of the preceding arguments would never be proposed.
These are not arguments developed in light of the evidence but rather arguments developed to explain the lack of evidence. The best effort at providing a positive argument for authenticity of the
Comma is
the grammatical argument.
On pp 11-12, I cover the big names - Bulgaris, Nolan, Dabney, Gaussen, Middleton, Cornwall.
Page 16
The easiest objection is obvious: how did every scribe copying every extant manuscript of 1 John miss poor grammar for seventeen centuries? Since early church fathers quoted the verse without the
Comma, how is it possible that
nobody considered that a grammatical problem might indicate the removal of a doctrinally significant passage, particularly given the importance such a verse would have had during the Trinitarian controversies?
Avery Spencer has yet to give us a coherent explanation for this obvious problem. Nolan at least had the integrity to realize he had to answer that question. Now - his answer was about as stupid as you can imagine - heretics removed it! - but at least he answered the question unlike the modern KJVO ostriches who stick their heads in the sand at any difficult question (which for them is any questions at all).
[1] Citations by early Church Fathers may be found in Brown,
The Epistles of John, 781-85
.
[1] The most common response is to appeal to an alleged large number of Latin witnesses (“thousands”) as somehow offsetting the lack of Greek ones (e.g., allegedly thousands of late Latin Vulgate manuscripts that contain the
Comma are of greater value than the few Greek early ones that do not). This is the argument of Michael Maynard,
A History of the Debate Over 1 John 5:7-8 (Tempe, AZ: Comma, 1995), 277, 284, 344-49. His argument is flawed in several ways: 1) it assumes every single Latin manuscript contains 1 John; 2) it assumes there are thousands of Latin manuscripts that contain 1 John, a highly unlikely assumption; 3) it counts each manuscript as one vote. Doing so violates the most basic tenet of textual criticism: “Universal suffrage has no place in textual criticism” (Leon Vaganay, rev. by Christian-Bernard Amphoux,
An Introduction to New Testament Textual Criticism, 2d ed. [New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992], 62). Although Maynard would probably deny claiming that every Latin manuscript has 1 John, his list of thousands of question marks representing 8,000 Latin manuscripts suggests this conclusion.
[2] These arguments are mentioned here to acknowledge that pro-
Comma advocates do present more than just three arguments in their favor. The reason for not addressing each argument is because these arguments deal primarily with nonexistent evidence. It is one thing to say that the evidence supports your conclusion; it is quite another to claim that your conclusion would be supported if nonexistent evidence actually did exist. Three of these supplementary arguments are appeals to nonexistent evidence.
[3] This argument finds its origin in the writings of Dean John William Burgon (Dean John W. Burgon,
The Last Twelve Verses of Mark [London: John Murray, 1871], 23; Dean John W. Burgon,
The Revision Revised [London: John Murray, 1883], 319). It was later suggested by Kirsopp Lake, “The Caeserean Text of the Gospel of Mark,”
HTR 21 (1928): 349, and then elevated to the level of fact by Lake’s former student, E. F. Hills (Edward F. Hills,
The King James Version Defended 4th ed. [Des Moines: Christian Research, 1984], 185-86). For refutation, cf. D. A. Carson,
The KJV Debate: A Plea for Realism (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979), 47-48; Harry A. Sturz,
The Byzantine Text-Type and New Testament Textual Criticism (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1984), 37-45. Despite his unproven theory of “worn out manuscripts,” Burgon never advocates the
Comma as a reading that vanished. Burgon’s position on the
Comma is a contentious subject (cf. Maynard,
History, 209-10). Although he never explicitly denounces it as a corruption, he also never advocates it (
Revision Revised, 483).
[4] Maynard,
History, 38.
[5] Thomas Holland,
Crowned With Glory: The Bible from Ancient Text to Authorized Version (Bloomington, IN: iUniverse, 2000), 166-68.
[6] Maynard,
History, 284, 305.
[7] Hills,
The King James Version Defended, 213.
[8] This is the logical fallacy
petitio principii or “begging the question.”